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okay, so this "review" is more a reason why I did NOT go to see the movie.

Psalm 101:3

I miss Granny.  Granny meant a lot to me.  Grandmothers usually mean a lot to their grandkids and I'm not denigrating those relationships, but my Granny was more involved in my life than most grandmas are.  My folks divorced when it was still a shame to be a divorcee.  Back when the divorce courts were held in regular court and hadn't yet made their mistakes and assumed standards for their decision making process.  My folks battled hard for custody of their four kids.  Threats were made, guns pulled, middle of the night tug of wars with me as the rope.  So its no surprise that we were put in the custody of others.  I won't go into the details but we wound up in the care of my Grandparents for a while and again at a later while. 

Talking about food in the Groceries article started me reminiscing about living with Granny and Pa and hearing the stories of the Great Depression and how they struggled to survive.  Life in rural Oklahoma is good.  Its good not because there are lots of jobs and getting ahead is easy, it ain't.  Its good because people slow down and meet with one another.  Its good to sit on the front porch of a ratty old house and hear where someone is coming from.  Granny and Pa were doing good in those days.  They'd struggled through the Depression, they'd been part of the migrant worker force going to California to pick fruit.  They'd worked for a rich man for many years and had finally put together enough to buy their own place and then a bit more to start their own farm and when the new dam was built and flooded all the farmland they'd been renting, they took their savings and invested in ranchland and cattle.  Not bad for an illiterate man and a housewife.  At this point they invested in breed stock race horses.  Just a couple of good names and bloodlines.

So while Pa was out tending the cattle or horse business we'd be sitting on the front porch of Granny's newly remodeled 3 bedroom house out on Hwy 69 and sipping at tall glasses of iced tea or lemonade in the humid 90* and up temperature with the Jar Flies making a racket in the Maple trees in the front yard.  It was just the sort of peace a kid from the divorce wars needed.  Life is hard sometimes, and sometimes you feel like your getting the worst of it.  Talking with Granny about how hard it was helped me put a little perspective on hard.  Usually, people who've known hard are closer than you think.  You'd think, looking at their nice house and successful ventures that they didn't know hard.  Everybody over 40 from rural Oklahoma knew hard.  There was a common bond between the people of the mountain because they'd looked after each other during hard.  Granny had lots of visitors who would stop by on their way to town or back.  I didn't know why or even that this was special.  As a kid I'd assumed this was normal.  In fact they felt it was normal.  Looking back now, I can see that it was special.

I don't know if Granny knew what she was giving me when she would tell me of the struggles they'd had to make it.  I don't mean becoming successful, I mean surviving from meal to meal.  I recommend everybody go out and rent the old black and white classic, "The Grapes of Wrath."  That movie was set in my home town as the starting point for the migrant workers going off to California to look for work.  It depicts a dust storm which Granny related to me from personal memory.  Stuffing rags under the doors and covering your mouth and nose so you could breath inside your house.  When the dust settled, planting a garden just to watch the seedlings wither and die.  Not having enough money to buy a bag of pinto beans.  Starting off your marriage with a single fry pan and wooden spoon and nothing else.  After the winter snow melted, not another drop of precipitation all year.  Leaving your home and traveling half way across the continent in an old run down jilopy that you can't count on to get you there or back and not a cent to spare.  Once there, being considered the lowest cast and living in tarpaloun camp communities and competing with others near starving for the few jobs available.  The lawlessness of those camps and men dieing in intercamp fights. 

They had five kids but the oldest was lost when he was accidentally bounced off the bed by his younger brother and suffered a concussion.  Granny knew hard.  She told me about struggling to put anything together for her family to eat.  Water biscuits are made with flour and water.  No milk, no salt.  Just plain four and water.  One of my favorite dishes was born out of necessity.  Half a cup of milk, sugar, water, and unsweetened chocolate makes a chocolate syrup they called chocolate gravy.  We'd pour this over buttered rolls or biscuits.  Its a real art to make this because you have to cook it until just before it makes candy.  My Dad verified this, she said there were days when there was nothing but pinto beans and you were proud to have them.  There were days when you were so tired of them you preferred to do without.

Dad related more stories about their struggles.  He and his older brother were the chief bread winners in the family for a number of years.  They would hire out to train horses to be ridden and while training them in that one day, they'd use them to track down and bring home stray catlle for their neighbors.  A dollar a head for the cattle and a dollar a day for the horses.  At the end of that day, the horses knew the commands and knew their jobs.  This was when my Dad and his brother were between the ages of 10 and 15 years old.  After the drought was over, migrating to California for summer work had become normal.  Dad was driving a bulldozer for a while and laying irrigation pipe for a while.  This is when he met my mother.  It was such a shock for her when she went home with him the first time and discovered they still didn't have indoor plumbing.  She felt she'd moved into,,, well her prejudices came out against the Okies.  That was 1959.  Within 5 years, everybody on the mountain had indoor plumbing installed or had built new houses.  If you've never visited an outhouse, its a bit like a portapotty made out of wood.  Some have more than one seat called two holers or 5 holers depending on the number of seats.

In this day and age, in this culture, hard is a relative term.  Hard is having to choose between paying the house payment or the two car payments.  Which can we more easily do without?  Hard is deciding if we announce bankruptcy or wait and see if the house sells.  and that's the folks who are struggling with their finances.  Others consider it hard when their perverse relationship isn't accepted by the mainstream.  Others consider it hard when they think the government is spying on their e-mails, phone calls and library records.  Hard is studying for an algebra test.

Those may be considered difficulties, but they are not hard.  Hard is having two parents more interested in hurting each other than in seeing to your welfare when you're eight years old and have three younger siblings who look to you for council and provision.  Hard is when you are sent to lay your life on the line and then the country doesn't appreciate it.  Hard is telling the nation about real threats to their culture and system of governance and many in powerful positions work to dissuade belief and blame you for the threats.  Hard is meeting your son at the army hospital who is being treated for 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 20% of his body and has a gaping hole in the side of his head.  All of us think we know hard.  Its those who really do know hard that we value when we come to know real hard.  Their council is timeless and a real help when all perspective is lost in the depths of hard that we've never known.

For those of you who are not familiar with Dennis Prager, I wanted to bring a sample of his work.  His clarity of thought and ability to express those thoughts are renowned in matters of morality.  He is very religious though not Christian, he speaks at Christian venues all the time.  He is Jewish and teaches the Torah on a regular basis in Synagogue. I listen to him daily on his three hour talk show Monday through Friday.  Here is his take on the subject of love.  He doesn't bother to separate the four different meanings our concept of love has been translated from.  He simply approaches the subject from the modern perspective which is based in the ancient traditions of nearly all cultures.

In my past studies on the topic from the Bible, I discovered that our English single word to express the concepts of what took four different words in the Greek and simalarly in the Hebrew, has facilitated our confusing verticle and horizontal love.  In this article Dennis describes the relationship of equals and draws a comparison of differences between love of authority to its charges.  ie. the love of a man and woman or between adult same-sex friends as opposed to the love of a parent for their child and God for His people.  I wanted to expand just a little on Dennis' thought about unconditional love, so I will add a paragraph at the end of Dennis' article.

With Valentine's Day approaching, some thoughts on love.

1. The love relationship between a man and a woman is unique. There is no love like it for two primary reasons: First, it is the love of equals -- all other love relationships (except same-sex friends) are between unequals. Second, it is sexual.

2. Because it is the only love relationship between equals (again except for friends), it is the only relationship in which it is a good thing to seek to be loved. In other relationships, it is bad to seek to be loved. Parents who seek to be loved by their children will inevitably do a poor job as a parent. They may even damage their child. Leaders who seek to be loved by the public will be ineffective at best and dangerous at worst. One can only lead if he does not yearn to be loved. A teacher who tries to be loved by her students will likewise fail. Parents, leaders, teachers have jobs to do, and seeking to be loved compromises their ability to do those jobs properly. They should seek to do the right thing, and doing the right thing often means being not loved, even hated. If they seek any response from those they lead, it should be respect, not love.

But in the love of equals -- i.e., the love between a man and a woman and the love of friends -- it is not only all right to seek to be loved, it is a good thing. Taking the love of a spouse or friend for granted is perhaps the single greatest cause of marital divorce and the breakup of friendships. "What can I do to ensure his/her continuing love?" is a wonderful thing to keep in mind.

3. That is one reason the notion of "unconditional love" is foolish. The fact is, we all earn love, and it is a good thing to have to do so. What possible good purpose can the belief that your spouse loves you unconditionally -- i.e., no matter how you act -- serve? If we believe our spouse loves us no matter what we do, what would motivate us to be on our best behavior at all times? Why be kind even when we are in a foul mood? Why work to stay attractive if he will love me no matter how much I neglect how I look? Why continue to pay attention to her -- like regularly calling her from work -- if I know that even if I ignore her, she will continue to love me?

Unconditional love is not a good idea. I don't know where it originated, but I am quite certain it's relatively recent, a product of an age that has put primary importance on feelings. With the possible exception of a parent's love for a young child, unconditional love is not a good idea among people, and it's probably not a good idea concerning God's love for us. I am familiar with no biblical basis for the notion that God loves us no matter how much cruelty and evil we engage in (God's love of His Chosen People, Israel, is specifically depicted as conditional upon Israel's behavior), or for the notion that God loved Adolf Hitler and Mother Teresa equally. Frankly, I would be disappointed in such a God. It renders Him a love machine whose love cannot be affected by our behavior, not a loving being who is affected by how we act. It renders His love amoral. And it prevents us from growing up.

4. "God is love" is a half-truth. God is many things, and love is only one of them. One can just as accurately say "God is punishment" or "God is justice" or "God is truth."

5. We show love to those we love by doing what they consider loving, not necessarily by what we consider loving. A young man once called my radio show and told me he was not planning to give his girlfriend flowers or even a card, or to do anything special for her on Valentine's Day. His reason was that he considered Valentine's Day a creation of American capitalism -- just another way to sell cards, flowers and gift items and increase companies' profits. I asked him if his girlfriend agreed with him about the insignificance of Valentine's Day. He said she didn't, that, in fact, she thought it important that he do something special for her on Valentine's Day.

I then asked him if he considered birthdays special and expected his girlfriend to do or get something special for him on his birthday. He said he did. How would he react, I then asked, if his girlfriend dismissed the significance of birthdays the way he dismissed the importance of Valentine's Day and ignored his birthday? He acknowledged that he would be hurt.

Just as his girlfriend should make his birthday special whether or not she believes in the importance of birthdays, he should make Valentine's Day special for her whether or not he deems the day special. We show love to the other in the way he or she understands it, not the way we do.

6. Finally, to the extent that emotions can be measured, it may be difficult to say whether love or hate is the stronger emotion. But this can be said with certainty: Among the psychologically healthy and morally decent, there is no comparison. Love is the most powerful force in our life. And the more the merrier.

End of Dennis' article.

Dennis expressed an understanding of God's love to be more closely to that of equals.  While not implying that we are in any way equal to God, this love description is accurate if incomplete.  According to the scriptures, God views us as both children and a bride.  While we are yet sinners we are His children.  As we become the devoted we grow into a people in line with His will.  As we mature in this spiritual sense we move from being children to friends of God.  As friends of God we become eligible for partnership with God.  This is again, not to suggest we are ever equal with God, but a match for co-love as compared to that between a husband and wife.  This is the whole premise of the classic book by Madam Guyon titled, "Song of the Bride" which is a commentary on the wisdom book in the Bible, "The Song of Solomon."  If you've had trouble making heads or tails of this poetic prose translated from its original language, then I suggest you grab a copy of "Song of the Bride" and read both books side by side.  You won't be disappointed.

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I've been staring at this article for the past two days trying to decide what to make of it.  Is Islam making a change?  The change required would be as huge as Christianity changing the basic doctrine of attributing salvation to the work of Jesus on the cross to salvation by being more good than evil or self powered salvation instead of God powered salvation.  In Islam there is no guarantee of salvation except by dying in jihad or in their words, "for the cause of Allah."  I think the author has made the same mistake nearly all western writers and reporters make in evaluating Islam.  A small group of theologians in Turkey will not redefine Islam and spread the new doctrines to the four corners of the earth.  This is literally what Jesus and His disciples did for Judaism, but was Judaism spread to the four corners of the earth and as such a dominant faith system as is Islam?  Do I applaud and encourage their efforts?  Of course, but I don't foresee a great and successful reformation.  Islam is every bit as diverse as Christianity and the militant factions of Islam aren't just intolerant of other doctrines, they are militant intolerants.  They literally take great pride in being the hand of Allah persecuting and killing proponents of different doctrines, naming them apostate and insisting on cleansing Islam from such 'perversions.'  Al Qaeda may have lost its popularity, but the foundation of al Qaeda,  remains as active as ever and always behind the action, and as such, not a direct recipient of the condemnation for advocating violent jihad on the world.  In the article this group is never mentioned by name.  They are the Muslim Brotherhood and their credo is;

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

Koran-rewrite-IN02-wide-horizontal

Intellectually and theologically, a lot of the most ambitious work is being done by a group of scholars based in Ankara, Turkey, who expect to publish new editions of the Hadith before the end of the year. They have collected all 170,000 known narrations of the Prophet's sayings. These are supposed to record Muhammad's words and deeds as a guide to daily life and a key to some of the mysteries of the Qur'an. But many of those anecdotes came out of a specific historical context, and those who told the stories or, much later, recorded them, were not always reliable. Sometimes they confused "universal values of Islam with geographical, cultural and religious values of their time and place," says Mehmet Gormez, a theology professor at the University of Ankara who's working on the project. "Every Hadith narration has ... a context. We want to give every narration a home again."

TheCall DC II

Guys, let's face the hard truth: America is messed up. BIG TIME. Pornography, prostitution, and pop culture influence the sexual immorality, human trafficking, and abortion in this nation. Not to mention the greed, lust, and love of money that causes so much crime in many american cities. Not only is this rampant, but it is openly being marketed to our kids. there was a statistic for Canada that said that the average age a canadian loses their virginity is 16.. and that more than a third of 13 year old boys from Alberta said that they had watched porn of the internet "TOO MANY TIMES TO COUNT." I must stop here and make one point: Don't try to tell me that pornography has some good uses. I say to you that you are WRONG. (Isa 5:20). These stats are for Canada, but I can guarantee you that they are very similar in America. Divorce rates are climbing, and laws are being passed so that a boy can declare himself a girl and walk into a girls bathroom in public schools in California.

So enough of the negative, huh? well.. more of the hard truth is that the Church in America is sick and lukewarm. There needs to be a massive overhaul in the Church. So many leaders in the Church are addicted to the same things that their kids are. I heard another statistic about a year ago that said that the number of pornography rentals at hotels actually go UP when the Christian conferences go to town.

so think of this, people in america are calling good evil, and darkness, light. We then turn around, and have record floods in the midwest, droughts in the southeast, and raging forest fires in the east. on a larger, world wide scale, there are earthquakes in China, and hurricanes that flood cities..

'nuff said.

Okay. I'm tired of being negative now.

1000038749

That moment is NOW, beloved. There is a solution, and it's called fasting and prayer. God came up with it. In His great unfailing mercy, He has decided to give us a prescription for this virus of death that has infected our nation. 

The Call on the march

On August 16th 2008, God is calling over one million people to the National Mall in DC, where they will fast, pray, and repent for the wickedness that is running rampant in this nation. all this according to the passage in Joel 2:15, with a solemn assembly of worship and prayer. I went to TheCall Nashville last year on 07.07.07, and I can tell you that as over 70,000 people gathered together, we moved things in the Spirit with our prayers. 

I can tell you that this year will be no different, except that the feeling will be 234526462 times as strong, and the effect just as awesome. I can't wait guys. 

So come to Washington D.C. on August 16th, and from 10AM to 10PM, we will stand before the throne of God on behalf of our nation, pleading for mercy, and, renewing our covenant with Him. 

I wish I could give you guys more information, but I to tell the truth, I am out of steam for today. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me.

rg

Girls are like
apples on trees. The best
ones are at the top of the tree.
The boys don't want to reach for
the good ones because they are afraid
of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they
just get the rotten apples from the ground
that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples
at the top think something is wrong with
them, when in reality, they're amazing.
They just have to wait for the right
boy to come along, the one
who's brave enough
to climb
all the way
to the top
of the tree.
borrowed from megan

            I have been looking through my personal journal over the past few months, since I have entered the world of blogging.  Certainly it has been a blessing, far beyond anything I expected, and it has also been a challenge as I have interacted with those who oppose the message of God’s Word.

            I thought I would share some of my entries in the hope that it may encourage other Christians to step out and share their faith. Some of these entries are direct from Scripture on a day when I needed it, and some are from writings by Oswald Chambers.

·        Jeremiah 20:9 “His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones.  I was weary of holding it back and I could not.”

·        2 Timothy 1:2 “The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”

·        Jeremiah 10:23 “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.”

·        Oswald Chambers – “There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him.”

·        Oswald Chambers – “God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out our whole hearted devotion to Him in that particular work.”

·        Oswald Chambers – “Spiritually we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us; and we cannot measure that at all.”

·        Acts 18:10 – The Lord said to Paul, “Dismiss your fears; go on speaking and do not give up, I am with you and no one shall attack you or injure you; for I have many people in this city.”

·        Acts 11:23 – About Barnabas - “He encouraged them all to remain with fixed resolve, faithful to the Lord.”

·        Acts 4:20b Weymouth – “As for us, what we have seen and heard we cannot help speaking about.”

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THE PHARISEE AND TAX COLLECTOR

Read:  Luke 18:9-14

            The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,'God, I thank You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.  Luke 18:11 NKJV

* * *

            This religious leader may have had much to be proud of in avoiding gross sin, but he missed the fact that he was still a sinner. Salvation comes through repentance, and Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  The tax collector, so despised for his sin, had it right.  He, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'  (18:13)

            The Pharisee was like the rich young ruler who thought he could gain eternal life by doing good works. We must all come by way of repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ.  Only then can we do genuinely good works, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

* * *

            Lord, forgive me when I am guilty of looking down on someone I judge to be more sinful than I. As You have extended mercy to me, I must desire mercy for others. You look beyond the outward appearance and see our hearts. Help me to discern the heart attitudes of my children and teach them humility by example.

* * *

            ". . . everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 18:14 NKJV